I want to say The attrition rate statistic one guy showed has a glaring omission. The reason for high attrition rates at T-4's is that they include transfers. I go to a T-4 and there is technically a 25% attrition rate, but 32 people transferred up to higher ranked schools granted 7% did not make it academically, but a lot of them were night students that were balancing careers and going to law school, which is a pretty daunting task. Then a few people truly did not put in the work and no matter where you go if you don't put in the work it is not going to work out.

Hmmmm. Had not taken into account the percentage of the total attrition that were transfers out.

The 32 transfers were out of a class of how many students?

Good point though, now I have to pay attention to what the attrition is for.

And what these rankings are, really, are a rank of the law schools' relative worth/importance to biglaw.

If the rankings claimed they were only about BigLaw then I would not have problem with them. It would continue down the path that it is pointless to rank outside of the top 25 maybe 50. I am sure at BigLaw firms there are approximately as many Gonzaga/Hofstra Grads as there are GGU/Cal Western/Southwestern Grads. Biglaw does not care about tier 2/3/4 you have to be exceptional from one of those schools to get into BigLaw.

I think regional rankings and bar passage would be fair, but it would have to be by state. If they did all the California schools and used bar passage rate and let it make up 60% of the rankings and actually went more in depth as to what placement means then I would have no problem with it. You can agree that schools screw with placement, I went to a couple schools and asked for in-depth salary information etc and schools count unpaid internships at graduation as placement and I think we can agree that is B.S. and clearly not what you would consider EMPLOYMENT PLACEMENT after going 100k in debt.

That is an objective report though and if U.S. News put more than 2% consideration into their rankings for bar passage I would take them a lot more seriously. At the end of the day if I go to Harvard or Cooley and don't pass the bar I would be kind of po'ed, because neither school should have let me graduate if I couldn't pass the bar.

This is nonsense. If you go to Harvard and don't pass the bar exam, it's because you didn't prepare for it properly during the summer before the exam. I won't argue that it is the responsibility of some schools to prepare you for the bar, but at the very top schools the presumption is that you can prepare for it during those two months after you graduate, because it's just a bunch of memorization that is relatively easy for anyone at that level.

Maybe if they split up the rankings so that there was the top 25 and then there were regional rankings, bar passage should count for more for the non-top schools. It doesn't make sense for the top schools.

More like split it by top 10 and then Everybody Else.

And what these rankings are, really, are a rank of the law schools' relative worth/importance to biglaw.

I am by no means an expert but I put myself in the shoes of a small law practice and if I as a lawyer know it costs a grip for this applicant to attend xyz top 10-14 law school and that they wouldn't even look at my firm if the economy wasn't so bad, plus they can't repay their debt on my salary...why take them over a traditional applicant from a less pricey local or regional school?

I would think a smart hiring partner would realize someone who got through law school on a full scholarship or with minor debt has much more leeway to take a lower paying job and not be miserable about it.

LawSchoolNumbers.com ranks the 195 law schools by 1L attrition rates. (The ABA Section on Legal Education publishes aggregate attrition rates, and each school's attrition rate is available on its official ABA data sheet.) Here are the 25 law schools with the highest attrition rates according to LawSchoolNumbers.com, along with the school's 2009 U.S. News overall ranking:

With the economy and the over over abundance of law schools and graduates, how in good conscious can the ABA justify keeping these school accredited. They are all abominations. And Louisville.... SHAME ON YOU!

Honestly, at the end of the day, even if the school is completely unaccredited, if it's working for you, don't worry about what else is going on with it. Somebody from Whittier is enjoying themselves there.

That is an objective report though and if U.S. News put more than 2% consideration into their rankings for bar passage I would take them a lot more seriously. At the end of the day if I go to Harvard or Cooley and don't pass the bar I would be kind of po'ed, because neither school should have let me graduate if I couldn't pass the bar.

This is nonsense. If you go to Harvard and don't pass the bar exam, it's because you didn't prepare for it properly during the summer before the exam. I won't argue that it is the responsibility of some schools to prepare you for the bar, but at the very top schools the presumption is that you can prepare for it during those two months after you graduate, because it's just a bunch of memorization that is relatively easy for anyone at that level.

Maybe if they split up the rankings so that there was the top 25 and then there were regional rankings, bar passage should count for more for the non-top schools. It doesn't make sense for the top schools.

More like split it by top 10 and then Everybody Else.

And what these rankings are, really, are a rank of the law schools' relative worth/importance to biglaw.

I am by no means an expert but I put myself in the shoes of a small law practice and if I as a lawyer know it costs a grip for this applicant to attend xyz top 10-14 law school and that they wouldn't even look at my firm if the economy wasn't so bad, plus they can't repay their debt on my salary...why take them over a traditional applicant from a less pricey local or regional school?

I would think a smart hiring partner would realize someone who got through law school on a full scholarship or with minor debt has much more leeway to take a lower paying job and not be miserable about it.

My take: The only people who are really hurting to find jobs right now are people who are looking for jobs in biglaw. I'm at Mercer, and I ended up with 4 summer job offers.

I'd be careful about equating summer job offers with full time job offers. Still, good job on that.

Yeah, I realize that, but I also know that at least 2 of the offices hire a ton of their 2L interns, so it's not like there's no translation at all.

Were your offers Macon firms? I have heard that Mercer is pretty protected from the overall crash because it has a lock on the Macon firms.

While I grow weary of seeing OP's sentiments browbeaten into everyone in every thread, I do appreciate the sentiment behind this thread, because it is easy even if you are not biased against T3 and T4 schools to end up not even able to analyze them properly because many of us first encountered any organization of the schools in the US News rankings...and they don't even bother to rank the T3 and T4. So it's easy for a majority of ls hopefuls to see only T1 and T2 schools as options, and end up making all their choices among those.

It is good to research continuously on these schools...while getting into a top 10 school feels good psychologically (and 90% of getting through anything hard is mental), being considered tops of the entering class feels good psychologically too, and so does attending school in an area you would LOVE to live and work for the rest of your life, ESPECIALLY doing it for free! lol

So again, people, don't use up all your analytical skills on practicing for the LSAT...once that's done, really look at every ABA-accredited school (and the non-accredited in California if you like risk and don't want to keep open your options of practicing outside the state)...use the Detailed Search funtion of the ABA guide to search for any combination of criteria that fits your description or what you are looking for.

TLS has a list and reviews (by clicking on the hyperlinked names) of the T3 and T4 schools, with their 25th-75th percentile GPAs and LSATs. You can start there if the ABA search function is a bit intimidating...then go on the schools' websites! While I always say it's good to know the good and the bad...the OP's point is that most if not all of what's on the net about these schools are very bad. So balance it out with a visit to the website of the schools you're interested in...read the Dean's letter, the history, their blurb about their location...click around, there are always interesting facts that may be just right (or all wrong) for you that you won't find out by listening to only one side of the story. Do NOT ignore the bad news about a school, but have a comprehensive file of info on it.

Do your research and buyer beware. Know your priorities in a school and choose the schools in that order of priority, not anyone else's.

I simply said money, I really enjoy law school a lot if I won the lottery I would probably still be doing it. You don't have to wait two years etc, I don't think schools really care much what you did before law school. All they care about his UGPA and LSAT and maybe personal statement etc makes up no more than 5% of your admissions decision.

I think it is good to work in a law firm and just know what you are getting into, my first year of law school would not expose to anything about lawyers do on a day to day basis and I think you should work in it for a year to see if you would enjoy it. If you are going to commit 100k and 3 years of your life, it might be worth spending a year of time working in the environment. Obviously, you don't have to and plenty of people don't I just think it helps and a lot of people complain when they actually go into their 1L or 2L job and realize law school is not very similar to go to law school. Again that is just my opinion, maybe some people think law school is complete preparation and I am only a 1L so I imagine there is a lot more to learn.

Yes they do love work experience in the field of law...it's the education part I was addressing.